Survive the Red Sky
by BERSER-CAR
Summary: I was trapped inside some sort of weird game. At first, i thought I was still dreaming, but then the dream went on for weeks, months even. The symbols... The people... All I knew but none I truly knew. I don't care for helping make this world better. I don't care whether Konoha was razed to the ground. All I cared about was surviving, as in this game, there is only one life. OC SI.
1. Chapter 1

Alright. Probably my worst idea ever. Seriously, how the hell did this idea even pop up in my head? i hate the naruto fanfic archive with a passion, so i really dont know why i decided to write this.

Seriously, i hate the god damned archive. It's the same thing everywhere. The last original story i read was ouroboros or something similar to that, and it was some time ago since i found that.

Well, whatever, i dont care if you love or hate this, i wrote this cause i was bored. simple as that. So hope you have a little bit of enjoyment at the least when you read this.

Oh yeah, also Disclaimer whatnots and nonsense.

Anyway, word of warning, i wrote this at different times so the flow could be slightly choppy and this is a self-insert OC type story. I also want to take this story in a different path than most, although im not sure if i will finish this at all since i barely put any effort into throwing this together. Also screw romanji, im too lazy to google translate and that crap bugs me anyway.

Now you can go ahead and read.

* * *

Chapter one: dream dreams and live nightmares

Video games are supposed to be fun.

I mean, seriously, video games. It has the word game in the title. How can it not be fun?

I have played a lot of games in my life. Quite a lot. Some I just couldn't get a solid grasp on. Some I spent countless hours mastering. Others caused me to silently fume as I constantly retried over and over.

However, I had never met a game that did not revolve around the concept of delivering an experience to the player.

Some might argue differently, but no matter what game I played, I got something out of it, no matter if it was good or bad.

And because I could recognize that, no matter how bad a game might be, I always got some modicum of enjoyment out of video games.

I used that enjoyment to fill in the gaps, the gaps between reality and dreams. But then that feeling faded, and I had to find a new source of enjoyment.

However, I was given a chance to experience the game that would end my silent suffering. I was given a chance to play the game of life in a universe not of my own.

In my original life, I was a selfish lazy manga-loving guy who took advantage of situations when they benefited me and was thought to be some sort of genius. I spent most of my days inside the comfort of my own house, enjoying not really having to do anything and using my time to browse the deepest corners of the net for manga and whatnot or just playing a game. I was an introvert, and so any relationships that I had that relied on me being there to respond quickly deteriorated, but if someone were to approach me or if I found someone I thought I would be comfortable with, I would spend time with them.

I tended to keep a cool attitude about things, not really letting things get to me. I kept every emotion I had that would be detrimental to my well being locked up and instead thought it would be better to just be happy and carefree. This backfired on those occasions where I really did get angry, and when I got angry. I got ANGRY.

As stated before, I used most of my time to play games or use the Internet. But, I suppose, when I have neither, I just simply sat on my bed and thought. These instances of pure boredom and just sitting around on my bed thinking had gotten to a point where I would spend most of the evening just thinking on things. The games which had used to give me some sort of entertainment had faded over time, and the Internet could only hold ones interest for so long, when one as introverted as I did not join any sort of forum or social networking site. I just couldn't handle the pressure of having to continually talk to people for long periods of time. Hell, just texting some of my close friends, the few I had, was a strain I could barely handle for short periods of time.

I suppose my lack of social interaction was the reason I started to view things as... Hollow. Things just stopped being interesting after time. I just stopped caring after a while. School. People. Games. All of it just started to seem meaningless.

I did mention I was selfish as fuck though. Even though I viewed much of the things I did as meaningless bullshit to fill in my time during my existence, I wanted to live. There was no way I was going to die. So, instead of contemplating suicide or something stupid like that, I just thought up new things to fill in the time. I suppose that's why how much time I spent thinking went through the roof.

I went to sleep more often, thanks to how much time I spent thinking in my room. I slept for hours at a time, sometimes the entire day, if I had a vacation or something.

I liked sleeping. I didn't have to do anything when I slept. I didn't have to think, I didn't have to worry, I didn't really have to do any of the social responsibilities forced onto my person.

So in sleep, I found peace.

I wasn't the type to dream. My brain was hard wired to just go to sleep and seemingly wake up a few seconds later, from my perspective. However, when I did dream those few dreams that perpetrated the confines of my mind, they were so incredibly vivid and surreal.

My dreams had not been like that at first. Usually they were just blurry pictures that seemed vaguely familiar, but that quickly passed. Over time, they had become more and more life-like, and instead of just a single image, it had expanded to small segments of a life-time unknown.

I had fun little dreams, where I would be the main character of a manga or video game, traversing a plain or fighting enemies. They were always short, and they were mostly forgotten by the end of the day, but they were extremely vivid, almost as if I had been there.

Then, one afternoon, I had fallen asleep and dreamed.

And I didn't wake from my dream.

Instead, I had died in it.

The mud reached up to pull my boots down into the depths of the earth as I ran through the swamp. I shadows latched onto my face as I ran under the canopy made from the dense trees all around me. The sound of labored breathing reached my ears, but it sounded so far away, even though I recognized it as my own.

I had been running for a while. From who or from what, I don't know. I just knew I had to run, run as if my life depended on it. For all I knew, it did.

Suddenly, my head jerked to the side, reacting to a swishing sound coming from the right side of my face. A sword greeted my vision.

I turned around and did a backflip, putting my back to a tree, before drawing my own sword from my back, and deflecting the next attack that had been aimed at my torso. I struck back with a thrust, attempting to stab my would-be assailant with the red blade I carried.

The assailant, a dark, robed figure, jumped back to avoid the blow. Using the distance created between us, I grabbed a small object from a pocket on my leg and threw it on the floor.

A large plume of dark smoke covered the area. I covered my face with the sleeve on my right arm, trying not to breathe in any of the smoke, before finding an exit and hoping I escaped the man in the cloak.

I ran for only a few more minutes before I came to the edge of a cliff. I turned around to find another place to run, but found myself facing the hooded man.

"Welcome to the the end, the beginning, and the forever..." He softly spoke in a gravely tone. "Are you ready? Ready to die and live?"

I kept quiet, ignoring the mans words and instead searching for a way to escape.

"Heh... Do not try to escape. You cannot escape from this. Not now. Not ever. In fact, I doubt you can even move right now..."

I turned my head away from searching for an exit and looked at him, wide eyed. I attempted to try moving forward, but, as he said, I found myself unable to.

"I am sorry I have to do this, but I must..." He took a step forward with the sword he had tried to stab me in the face with earlier. "Dream your dreams, have your nightmares..."

He pulled back the sword, and, with both hands, thrust the sword towards my abdomen and skewered me all the way through to the back.

I stretched a shaky hand for my stomach, the pain overwhelming. The dark, dark black of blood... I could see it, painted over my fingers, skidding and dripping off, sending droplets of blood careening to the ocean below.

My legs grew weak. I wanted to kneel, but the sword locked me in place, forcing me to stand. The cloaked man stepped closer, and he pulled me towards him, allowing me to lean into his willowy form.

"And let the games begin..." He whispered into my ear.

He slid the sword out, flicking my blood over my face. he tipped me backward, toward the precipice of the cliff.I tipped over the edge, falling down into the water below.

I hit the water moments later, but it felt like an eternity. Surprisingly, I did not feel a thing upon coming into contact with the water, which did not seem to bother my addled mind at the time. Instead, I watched as blood slowly drifted into the water, the evening sun lighting the red liquid on fire beneath the waves.

And then it slowly became dark, and eventually I found myself waking up to darkness.

-  
I blearily opened an eye, and then quickly close it because of how tired I was and because of the throbbing headache I had. Said headache prevented me from actually returning to sleep, so I got into a cross legged position and covered my eyes with my hands, recalling the dream I had.

"Woah... That was a trip..." That was the first time I had died in a dream before. It was also the first time I had felt pain in one, which was completely out of the ordinary. The details of the dream where quickly fading from my mind, but it still felt so surreal...

I lifted my head out of my hands and looked around. "What the fu..?"

It was completely pitch black, no matter which way I turned. I had originally thought the darkness was simply my eye still adjusting to the darkness of my bedroom, but it simply was just an ink-like void.

I couldn't find my bed, nor could I feel it. In fact, I couldn't feel anything. I pushed my hand to the 'floor', but all I felt was a kind of resistance, as if something had just decided to keep my hand in place.

"Shit... Am I still dreaming?" I said to myself. I never lucidly dreamt, so if I was lucid, then i could do whatever I wanted, which would be pretty cool. I tried pinching my arm to test the theory, but stopped once I noticed something rather peculiar. I could still see my body with perfect clarity. I was surprised I hadn't noticed that before. Perhaps it was because I had just woken up?

I decided to test out my dream theory by trying to wish in a milkshake. I got nothing.

"Oh come on!" I wined. Oh well, seems even in my dreams I'm confined to some set of rules. Screw you brain.

I stood up, straitening out my t-shirt and pants and correcting the placement of the glasses perched on my nose. Following that, I decided it was time to create a plan of action, now that the morning fog had been mostly lifted, even if I was still asleep.

I briefly searched my pockets for anything, only to find a few coins I kept on my person in case I wanted to buy a drink or something and my dead MP3 player.

"Nothing..." I closed my eyes and then opened them again. "Suppose its time to guess..."

I flipped a coin I had in my pocket and let land on the floor. I did the same for a second coin. Using the coins, I made a line that would point me in some general direction.

I picked up my coins and began walking. It wasn't the best plan, but it was the only one I had.

A short while after I had been walking, I noticed something that I could have been doing. It was really impossible to tell if I was moving or not because of a combination of depth perception and the lack of being able to feel friction from the 'floor'. I could have just been walking in place, so I used the coins in my pocket as markers to determine depth. I flicked them forward and I walked towards them and picked them up, thus confirming that I was in fact moving forward.

The sound of flipping coins filled my ear while I walked. I thought over my dream, trying to remember the details, but with all the time that had passed, I could only remember the pain and a robed figure. I was also wondering if this was really a dream. It was the only thing this could possibly be, but it felt... Off. There really was no other way to describe it. I was starting to feel worried, and that feeling only increased as I continued onward. Was I really dreaming? What if it was something more? What if I'm in a coma? What if I will never find a way out?

It was at the point where I was almost paranoid that a small glimmer of light, far into the distance, caught my eye. It was my only option other than to lie down and wait, and I was not going to sit down while in this place. I ran full throttle for it.

I reached the source, fought my breath, and looked at the point of origin of the light. The sight caused me to send my hand through me hair and scratch the back of my head.

"The fuck? A door?" I felt like I should have been surprised, but for one reason or another, it failed to catch me off guard. "Seriously? A fucking door?"

The door itself was a strange combination of wood, iron, and glass. The door itself was mostly opaque tinted glass, with the glass separated by twisted iron. The combination of the glass and iron created a variety of shapes, some of quick I swore I recognized, such as something that looked like the golden ratio. The entire thing was surrounded by a blinding white wood frame which itself had a border of that blinding white light.

I looked behind the door, but there was nothing behind the said door, only more darkness. I stood at the front of the door for a minute or so before making up my mind.

"I am so going to regret this..." I grabbed the handle of the door and turned it, covering my eyes with my arm so I didn't get blinded, and stepped in.

"Oh come on... You have got to be kidding me."

I had entered an all white room, the exact opposite of where I had just been. It was a mirror of where I had just been, except inverted in color. There was one key difference though, and that was the random floating black words that were drifting lazily in the air.

New game  
options  
achievements (must start game to view achievements)  
cheats and unlockables

I took in the black words floating in the air and thought to myself 'Why?' I decided since nothing seemed to make sense since I woke up, I didn't question it.

"New game? Am I in a video game in my head or something?"

As soon as I spouted the words new game, however, the words morphed into a new set of words.

Would you like to start a new game?  
yes  
no

"Huh?" I looked at the words for a second before quickly spouting out my reply. "No no no no no, back back back back!"

There was no way in hell I was going to start some random game even if this was some sort of dream world. Who knows, it might just screw me over, and I did not want that.

Instead, I decided to try some of the other menus, specifically the options menu. I might be able to get a hint at just what I was playing, if I was going to play this at all.

hints: disabled  
reversed controls:disabled  
battle mode: real time/ turn based  
Exit

Well, fuck. There was nothing much in the options menu that was worth noting, seeing as there were only three options, at least reversed controls weren't enabled to troll me.

I did notice the hints were disabled, so I enabled them, and then exited out of that menu.

New game  
options  
achievements (must start game to view achievements)  
cheats and unlockables

I went down the list once more, and my eyes came to rest at the bottom, where the black, ghost like words of "cheats and unlockables" hovered.

"Cheats and unlockables." I commanded. A split second later, the menu collapsed on itself and I was met with a rather redundant selection.

cheats (locked)  
unlockables

I didn't mind cheating, but seeing as it was locked, I decided to see what unlockables there were, so I moved to the unlockables menu.

Custom BGM (have custom audio files loaded): disabled  
Legendary mode: Disabled  
? (Locked)  
? (Locked)  
? (Locked)

And the list went on like that until it hit the bottom, where it said "Exit".

I moved back to the top of the list and read off the top line.

"Custom BGM? Background music? What?"

would you like to enable Custom BGM?  
yes  
no

"I had custom mp3 files loaded? What the hell?" Well, the option itself seemed harmless enough, so I decided enable it. "Yes?"

Custom BGM enabled!

Custom BGM (have custom audio files loaded): enabled  
Legendary mode: Disabled  
? (Locked)  
? (Locked)  
? (Locked)

...

There was no way in hell I was activating legendary mode. It was probably some ultra hard mode or something like that, and there was no way I was going to activate that. Keeping that in mind, I just exited out and returned to he menu screen.

New game  
options  
achievements (must start game to view achievements)  
cheats and unlockables

I had hoped to get a clue as to what the game was about from the other menus, but there was nothing that have me any hint as to what this game was. The achievements menu might have given me some clue, but that was also suspiciously locked, so I decided to think for a bit, getting into a sitting position on the white 'floor'.

Did I really want to play a new game? I wasn't all to sure. Most of me still thought this was a dream of some sort, and so I would probably wake up if I waited long enough. A small part of me, however, was unsure, and I might be stick here, in this world of white and black forever, and this 'game' might be my only escape.

I splayed our on the floor, and stared up at the white expanse above. I really wasn't sure. Should I? Shouldn't I? If I died in this game, would I be able to continue, as the menu stated, or was that just a trap? What if this game wasn't really a game at all? What if as soon as I said new game, I would instantly die?

I took in a deep breathe and let it out before standing up and deciding my final fate.

"New game."

Would you like to start a new game?  
yes  
no

I sighed before saying my answer. "Yes."

The single word I said seemed to echo forever, before the scene suddenly change to the previous pitch black I had previously been in.

I panicked slightly. All new game did was send me back into this never ending place? Was I doomed to just be here forever? Then I noticed the stark white words high above my head, pasted to a pitch black invisible ceiling

would you like a default character, a custom character, or a personality based character? ( please note that once decided, you may not return to this screen unless a new game is started)

Oh great. More questions wandering around my head. Custom character? Such as create a character based off certain presets like in mass effect or soul calibur? And personality based? What did that even mean? And since this game had characters, was it an RPG or something? Ignoring the questions for now, I turned to what each character could mean for me.

I knew what a default character would mean, and I was tempted to just pick that one. Default characters were usually just presets that had certain skills they would learn as they leveled up, and only those skills. On the upside, they were easy. On the downside, they were incredibly linear.

The custom character would mean that I could customize my own character, hopefully. In that case I would be able to pick my own abilities and how I would look. The upside was that I would be able to pick what I wanted, but the downside is that in certain cases, something must be given up in return, such as the ability to wield a sword in return for not being able to fly or something like that.

The last one was strange. I assumed it was kind of like how a minecraft seed was generated, with a template of my personality given and then a history would be created off that personality. I was unsure of this, as the only games I had ever seen do anything like this were dwarf fortress in making entire worlds and minecraft in its seeds.

I thought it over, weighing the pros and cons, but eventually decided that the final option of a personality based character would probably be the best. If it is a character based off my personality, then the skill set of said character would probably be made to reflect said personality. Plus I didn't want to deal with any potential balance issues with creating a custom character, since I could return to the character creation screen if I decided I didn't like the process.

"Personality based character." I spoke with finality in my voice.

please wait, your character is being generated...

Loading screens. I hated loading screens. At least this one was quick, as it seemed to only take a minute.

your character has been generated. Please select your difficulty (please note that difficulty cannot be changed in game)  
easy  
medium  
hard

I pondered this for a few seconds. I always hated choosing difficulty. I liked taking the easy route, but then all good unlockables unlock on hard, in any game I have played that had unlockables.

Normal seemed the route to go, though. Normal modes tended to have their fair share of unlockables, and maybe one of those could help me get through this fucking game faster.

"Medium."

Medium selected. Generating world, please wait...

There. It was done. No way out of this now. No possible way anyway, seeing as I way trapped here. I only had to wait... So I took a sitting position with my hands resting on the impossible floor behind me, trying to gather my nerves for whatever was to come.

It didn't take long before I started to fell myself slowly sinking backwards into the floor. It began slowly, but then quickly ramped up in place. I turned my head to see my hands slowly disintegrating into nothing. I am not ashamed to say I screamed.

"Holy fucking shit no no no..." It was strange. I could see my arms slowly disappearing but my mind wouldn't register that they were gone, as I could still feel my arms. "Noooo no no no..."

Then I noticed that the rest of my body had started to disappear. My heart was pounding away in my chest, and I feared for my life. "I don't want to die! I dot want to disappear!" I screamed.

I shouted and hollered and screamed at the top of my lungs for someone or something to come save me from my fate. I knew though, I knew that I would disappear forever. There would be nothing left of me, and he darkness would be lonely once more.

Eventually, the sound disappeared from my voice, as my neck had disappeared. The top of my mouth became open to the world as my jaw disappeared. Breathing became impossible as my nose disappeared. Sight refused to be mine as my eyes disappeared.

I was gone forever, as everything became nothing.

I was trapped in my own mind.

That was the only way to describe it.

I thought I was in a coma, as I could barely make a coherent thought, but that had been disproven soon enough. Moving felt impossible. I could move, but it required such a huge effort it was nearly impossible. I could open my eyes, but everything appeared in a blurry gray-scale and it was so hard to keep them open that I simply resigned to my fate. I at least knew I wasn't dreaming, but the cost felt too great.

I might never be able to move again. That thought, that single coherent thought among only a few others I had been able to think of, haunted me for weeks.

That, accompanied by the massive amount of pain I always felt, made me feel utterly hopeless.

I wasn't new to constant amounts of pain. My left leg, before all this happened, was always in chronic pain. Somedays it was manageable, while on others I swore I could barely walk do to the feeling of having a steel rod shoved up the back of my shin.

This was like the most extreme of those pains. Except it wasn't the feeling of a steel rod in my leg. It was the feeling of what felt like a thousand fire ants on the inside of my body trying to make it home.

The pain came and went, but it was always there, just in the corner of my cognitive mind.

In those weeks, I had learned a few things. One was that I was in fact alive. Two, the people who were taking care of me spoke Japanese, for some strange reason. I recognized a few of the words they spoke, which wasn't surprising considering all the anime I had watched. Perhaps the doctors (if they were in fact doctors) looking after me spoke in Japanese when in private? Three, everything looked so... Big, for one reason or another. I felt so small in those rare moments were I could see, even if it looked like a distorted photograph from the 1860s. And finally four, I think I was finally getting better.

The pain had started to dissipate, albeit not by much. Now it was a manageable sort of pain, similar to the kind that had plagued my left leg for most of my life. I could make sounds with my mouth, but I couldn't really make any sort of proper word yet. I couldn't feel my teeth with my tongue, only my gums, so they might have been removed. I couldn't think of plausible reason as to why doctors would remove teeth, but then again, whatever had put me in this state may have knocked out all my teeth. The bleariness in my eyes had started to lessen, and now things were starting to become clearer, although they were still that monotone color.

Whatever these doctors were doing, they were clearly doing their job correctly. I had a theory as to why I was in what I thought was a hospital, but even that was a bit far-fetched. My current theory as to what had happened to me was that I had been kidnapped while I had been sleeping and I had been fed hallucinogens to keep me asleep, this explaining the dream. However, I had a bad reaction to them, and upon leading of reaction, abandoned me. Then I had been found in this state and brought to wherever here was.

I only had to wait, and hopefully things would get better and I could go home. Yeah... Home...

I let myself slip back into the state of semi-unconsciousness I had taken to being in and fell asleep.

-  
I had been here for what I assumed to be a month. In that time, I had managed to be able to focus on objects with clarity, although they were still in grayscale. My motor controls had slowly returned, but they were still pretty shit, compared to what I used to have. Words were possible now, although it usually came out as gibberish thanks to said crap motor controls. Most important of all, my ability to create complete thoughts had skyrocketed, and now i felt more like I used to. At least I had a reason for all of that now.

After regaining a bit more of my metal facilities, I was able to look around by tilting my head around and even getting up slightly. Upon discovery of being able to move in a more 3 dimensional range, I was able to take in a couple of facts.

1: I was trapped in what looked like a prison with wooden bars.  
2: The comfortable bed beneath me was actually the floor to said prison, and said floor was actually just a couple of layered sheets atop of what I assumed to be a mattress.  
3: the people that had been taking care of me did not appear big due to whatever I had been hit with, but actually were big, looking to be five times larger than I was. This in itself was hard to figure out due to how hard I had to concentrate to be able to see clearly.  
4: I was actually really tiny, about the size of a new born.

A couple of thoughts ran through my head upon putting all the facts together. My first thought was that I might still be dreaming somehow, but that thought was thrown out the window upon thinking how many days I had been here, but the idea still had a bit of merit. The second thought immediately after that was that I had somehow been shrunken down into a baby. The cage I was in could be a crib, and in that case the people who were taking care of me would have to be my parents. That made absolutely no sense in any regard unless I was still asleep, or, as I had feared, the strange blackness had not, in fact, a concoction of my own imagination but something more.

I wouldn't accept that though. I needed more proof.

That proof came sooner than I had thought it would.

Usually, because of my disabled state of mind, I ignored what the people said, mainly because it had been to much of an effort to stay conscious. However, for the past two weeks or so, I had gained enough strength to take in what they were saying and try to understand it.

Since they conversed in Japanese and I didn't understand most of it, I could only pick up on on words that were repeated more often than not.

Kaa-San, tou-San, and Miku were the most common words that I heard. The first two were a obviously mother and father. At that point my insane theory seemed more and more reasonable. Miku, though, was repeated so many times it was like every other word was Miku. I had originally thought that the word was just some sort verbal tick or something like that, but it was said way to often for it to be anything of the sort.

It took me a while to actually connect the word to myself.

Apparently, wherever the hell this was, my new name in this baby body of mine was Miku. And from watching so much anime and reading so many mangas, i knew Miku was a girl's name.

Upon learning that, I fell back into my own mind trying to understand that. There might be a very high chance I was a girl.

Why was everything so fucked up?

It didn't really take too long to get over it, surprisingly, but I still hoped I was a guy with a girls name. Knowing my luck so far, it seemed highly unlikely.

Once that thought process had eventually removed itself from my mind after it train wrecked into my logic centers, I thought it would be a good idea to try and say a few words, as I wasn't going to get anywhere not knowing Japanese.

So I practiced the only word I currently knew that would come in handy, which was my 'name'. I thought about practicing the other words I knew, but that, for some reason, seemed to be the one I wanted to practice. Probably because it was easy to roll of the tongue and tou-San and kaa-San were a bit harder to say. I suppose it was me just being lazy.

And then came the day where I had tried saying my name without noticing a person, who was apparently my mother in this fucked up situation I found myself in, walk in.

"Miku... Miku... Miku?" It still felt weird trying to pronounce the word. I had come to terms with the fact that the name would probably be my name from now on, by it still felt incredibly weird trying to say it... Especially in that high pitches voice I discovered I now had. "Miku Miku!"

Then I heard a sound coming from a corner of the room. From my previous life, I had linked the sound I had heard with someone dropping clothes on a surface. This sound was most likely caused by a similar occurrence happening.

"Miku?" I heard someone say. There were a couple of footsteps that were suspiciously getting closer followed by a face entering my field of vision. It was the face of the woman who had been taking care of me. She was pretty, with a thin face and hair held back so that most of her hair was left to spike out behind her head. Her dark eyes were extremely warm, filled with a sort of love that I knew I had no right to be receiving. Still, I liked it, and just looking at those eye made me want to smile.

"Miku & ^+ & 8&" "-£+ Miku!" She had turned around and started hollering out in the direction of where she had come from. She returned to face me and I felt hands wrap around my small body and pick me up. "Miku, ( $ Miku! Kaa-San £€•£^* $ *¥€ Miku!"

It was pretty annoying not having any idea what they were talking about, but I was able to pick up on the few words I knew. I was pretty sure she was talking to me, probably trying to get me to speak my name once more.

Deciding to try and give what little happiness I could bring to her, I decided to say my name again. "Miku Miku!"

The woman giggled at my high pitched attempts to say my name and once more called out to someone. " $&& $+*¥• ££+*£! Miku &"*+•££+!"

Another set of footsteps, this one much heavier than the other set that came from the woman, made its way to my ears and another face entered my vision. This one was one I was a pale giant one, with high cheekbones and dark bangs down the side of his face. "$&& "$ &"*=¥+= $"*=?!"

"Miku & "*+=¥ $ " Miku!" She looked at me expectantly. "$ *^+=, *+€£+=£• &¥=*!"

I thought about it for a second before realizing it would be better to simply get it over with and maybe I could go back to sleep as I was starting to fire once more. "Miku!"

She hugged me gently after that, and then passed me off to the male next to her. "& +* Miku. &" £+=*¥•£€ &"+=£• &¥+*¥?"

"Miku!" I really wish I could say more than that, but one really does take for granted just how hard it is to even talk, let alone articulate words when one is young.

He also hugged me, putting me over his shoulder and holding me there for a minute or so.

Being a tiny tot, it was natural t be curious, and ever more so when your a person many times your current age trapped in a baby's body, and so when I saw something shiny that was just in reach just behind his arm, I grabbed it.

The man laughed before setting back in the wooden prison and taking something of his arm. "&"&&" £¥*=€==£ $ & +=£•¥. &"& £+£•• &"*=£ &"$ *%. & &" , Miku?"

He pushed the thing he had taken off of his arm right into my face, which I tried to grab out of instinct. However, once I got a closer look at the thing, I realized it looked extremely familiar.

The thing he had pulled was a strip of cloth with a shiny metal plate embedded directly in the center of it. On the metal was a small symbol, one I would recognize from anywhere.

It was the symbol of the Leaf village, located in the land of fire.

Holy shit. Holy freaking shit. That... That should't be possible. What the fuck... What... What?!

") $ ($) ( $ *=€¥ $"& *=**." Even though I heard the words, I was still in to much shock at finding out that nothing made sense anymore. Nothing. "$"&&), $"&$, Mika."

He turned around and was about to leave, but the woman stopped him, right in front of me, by hugging him. I was slightly dazed by the earlier revelation, and so when I saw the symbol on his back, I was put in a state beyond shock.

Right there, right on his back, was the symbol of the Uchiha clan. The clan that had caused nearly every problem in the entirety of the show. The clan that was wiped out except for three. The clan I was now apart of.

There was no way, no way this was happening. Absolutely no way in hell was this possibly happening. Why the fuck was this happening?

With so much to chew on, I just had to lie down and rest. My brain needed to digest this and call down, or I would practically explode from all the emotions going through my head.

What I had yet to find out was that this was not the most surprising piece of information to be presented to me. No. There was another piece of information that would change everything I knew about the situation at hand.

I was crying again.

I wasn't the type to cry. Even before all this, I made it a point not to cry. It made me feel horrible, and it usually affected those around me into either trying to talk to me or feeling slightly sadder than before they had seen me. However, when things got to a point where it got to be to much, my usual constant smile would fade into a deluge of tears.

My smile was my wall. I smiled so others could smile and I hoped they would simply ignore me and go back to wherever they came from and stop bothering me. I also smiled for myself, deluding myself into thinking that I could just be happy in the worst of times and things would just play themselves out to a happy ending.

But sometimes, sometimes I had to let the wall crumble, and I just wailed my heart out.

I felt utter despair. I was sinking towards the bottom of an endless ocean with no hope for escape in sight, and the pressure was increasing every second. I was completely alone.

My real parents. Gone. My siblings. Gone. My home. Gone. My life. Gone. Every single thing I had ever really cared about? Gone.

In its place, I got a pain wracked tiny female body in a place where the threat of death was around every corner.

So I cried because I could not stand the weight of the world around me. I cried for what was lost. I cried because it was the only option left available for me to do.

My new parents tried everything they could to calm me down from these episodes. Really, they did, and I could feel their worry and desperation, but that did little to alleviate what ailed me. More often than not, I found myself crying to sleep.

Even nine months after I had found myself here, I still let my tears flow. They had lessened with time, but I still had them.

I had resolved to stop crying a while ago. Crying would not help me survive. Crying would do nothing for me. I remember someone once said that one can only cry when it's all over, and right now it was just beginning.

I wiped my eyes and got up from my bed to go walk around. It was the middle of the night, so my parents were away on business, leaving me some free time to go walk around.

I was never really a day time person. On days where I had nothing to do I found myself sleeping in until three and going to sleep somewhere early in the morning. My new parents apparently worked a night shift, so I was alone for these periods. I usually balled my eyes out during these times, but now I resolved to try and really focus on my current task.

I hoped out of my tiny bed (I had finally graduated from the crib) and took a small walk on my week legs to the back porch.

I had learned how to walk around two months ago. By that point in time, my eyesight had fully developed and my motor skills were up to par with what I had wished it to be. It still wasn't anything to be proud of, but I could feel it getting better. The pains that I had felt when I had been younger had completely faded away, and in its place I now felt a warm honey-like flow. Occasionally I felt a small twitch here and there, but that had all but disappeared.

I took a detour to a small bathroom on the left and opened the door. A small toilet, shower, and sink greeted me as I entered.i was still way to short to reach the top of the sink, so I used a small stool next to the door to pull my way to the top of the counter.

There was a mirror above the sink held a dark defection of the bathroom I was in. I could barely make myself out in the mirror, with my chubby face and thin, long hair, which was currently tied up behind my head. The black gown I was wearing blended in with the darkness of the bathroom.

I opened a faucet and wiped any remnants of water off my face and just stared at the unfamiliar face in the mirror. It was so alien... But it was mine. A small, tiny, chubby face. The face of someone who would most likely die again some time in the future.

I splashed some more water on myself and walked out the door, refusing to dwell on those thoughts. I made my way down the lonely halls and to the back porch.

Our house was a small one on the edge of the Uchiha compound, right next to a small forest which was cut off from the trees outside by the wall that surrounded konoha. The back porch led out to a small clearing right before the forest, and I found that this spot was the most relaxing place to be.

It was mostly grass with a few trees here and there, but it was incredibly relaxing to just lie down on the soft grass and just stare up at the sky.

The moon was full tonight.

I could see every star here. Every pinprick of light on the blanket of the sky. It was beautiful. But it still wasn't my sky.

The moon was above and I wasn't dead, so I suppose it doesn't matter if its my sky at this point.

My thoughts drifted around for a while. It happened a lot when I came here, in this spot in between the tree roots, just staring towards the heavens. Sometimes I thought about my old life. I thought about all the things I could have done that were lost to me, all the good memories I had. Sometimes I thought about my new life. Today, they drifted in that direction, settling on the topic of my family.

My father, who I discovered was named Ryusei, was apparently a jounin level ninja of the Uchiha clan. He was one of the lower ranking ones, but he never let it get him down. I had managed to pick up that he was part of the Uchiha police, which should have come as no surprise to me, but for some reason it did. He didn't smile a lot, and never stuck around the house for to long before leaving again, but I could see in his eyes that he cherished the time he spent with his family, including me.

My mother, on the other hand, seemed to be a chuunin rank ninja, but had decided to take a leave of absence to take care of me until I was old enough. Her name was Shinako, which was actually the third word I learned right after kaa-San. She was incredibly kind, and somewhat timid, but she had a hardened streak in her which showed up on occasion, although these were extremely rare. I had spotted some kind of seal on the back of her neck, and when I had asked her about it in the little Japanese I had learned, she had said that it was "her family protecting her from mean people trying to steal her secrets." I hadn't delved into it that much, but I was sure she would tell me in her own time what it was.

I loved them. They weren't my original family, sure, but they still took care of me these past months. They had a place in my heart for that.

My thoughts were turned back towards my body where I felt the slight twinge of pain at my neck. I sent a chubby hand towards the area and rubbed it slightly, trying to alleviate the pain, not that I had the fine motor skills to really do all that much. I had discovered that the pain I had felt during my first few months here had been chakra. I didn't know what I had expected it to feel like, but the large amounts of pain had not been quite what I had been expecting. I had tried experimenting with it, but if was like playing with fire, with an intense burning sensation occurring if I tried to move to much of it. I did find shifting it around while it was in my body extremely comforting though, so that was something I had tried doing in my spare time, which was actually all the time I was awake, really.

I started to think about the physical aspects of my body. I was a girl. I had even confirmed it. It still freaked me out. Just thinking about it made me feel... Wrong, in a sense. I generally tried not to think about it, but it was practically impossible not to think about it.

At this point, I decided I was better off staring into the moon high above. This just reminded me of the future to come, if things managed to change with my arrival.

Personally, I found myself not caring what the hell happened to Naruto or his buddies if I was born near his birth. No, he was the fucking shounen hero of this goddamned universe. He was destined to fucking survive. I hated and envied him for that.

On the other hand, the only good thing I had was than I was apparently part of the Uchiha clan, which had the most overpowered bloodline ever to exist. Problem was, I had to survive the massacre, which was going to happen sooner or later, as I had seen the fourth's face up on hokage mountain, and then I had to come back to the village without them knowing who I was without them killing me. I wasn't under the assumption that I could just walk back in after an excruciatingly long period of time and say I had survived and wished to be brought back to the village. They would interrogate me and then most likely kill me if they found out. This was a ninja village and I was under no pretense that they wouldn't do just that.

I had come up with several plans, none of which I even wanted to do. Some of which just made my eyes water thinking about it. In the end though, there was really only one that would probably work, and that was so risky it would only work if I was fucking lucky enough to pull it off. It was also the worst of them all.

I don't think I could even start the first step. I hated having to hurt people. Emotionally and physically. It always felt like I was feeling their pain too. If I wanted to live though, if I really wanted to live, then I would have to do it.

I will not die. No, I was too selfish to die. I had to do this.

A shift in the wind was a signal enough that it was time to get back inside. Pieces of grass clung to bits on the back of the clothes I wore, and the scent of grass followed me on my way back inside.

I hobbled on my tiny baby legs over to the door and made my way down the hall back to my room.

Then I felt it. It felt like a wave from the beach had overcome my entire body and was washing it away. Except, it burned. It burned so badly.

I collapsed onto the floor, just outside my room, and curled into a small ball. Tears welled up in my eyes as wave after wave of pain came and went, each stronger than the last. It burned. It burned from inside out. It burned everywhere. It was like acid had been poured into my body and left there to slowly worm it's way out. And it burned so badly...

I could feel hate. Anger. Rage. All of it. It was concentrated on me. Oh god I was going to die. No, I wasn't going to die, not die... Yeah, don't die... That's what I was going to do. Don't die...

I shivered and coughed. Flecks of blood spewed out of my mouth and nose, giving my taste buds a meal of copper and my nose the smell of blood.

I stayed curled up on the floor, shivering, in pain, trying to figure out what was going on. The sheer malice I was feeling, however, was clouding my thoughts. I couldn't breathe because of the red liquid filling my nose and mouth. I couldn't move because of the pain. And it was still getting worse. Oh dear god was it getting worse. I didn't believe it was possible to feel so much pain, but it was. My arms burned away. My heart turned to ash. My eyes were coals that were still burning bright. Everything was on fire.

I felt like passing out for quite a while, in a puddle of my own blood that stemmed from my orifices. My mind and the pain wouldn't let me. They wouldn't let me just go to sleep and block it all out.

I wavered on the edge of consciousness. Never really going under but not really awake enough to understand what was going on. I could feel my chakra going haywire inside of me, trying to fight off whatever was causing the pain but failing to do so and simply causing more of it.

Just when I thought I was at the threshold of my pain tolerance, the pain slowly started to lessen. My breathing, sporadic due to my blood drowned lungs, had finally leveled out to a level where I could breathe, but just barely. My nose and mouth were stuffed with dried blood, and my clothes were practically soaked on one side with the amount of blood that managed to pool under me.

With the source of the pain finally gone, my body finally allowed itself to pass out.

I felt warm. It was like I was resting on a cloud. I took a deep breathe in, and relaxed a bit more into the cloud. However, this only changed the cloud into something harder, and started to bring me out of the relaxed state I was in.

My eyes felt extremely dry. I attempted to crack one open slowly, but the pain from the intense amount of light was a bit much. I waited a few more minutes before slowly opening both eyes, which had by then adjusted to the light.

I was in a bed, as I had assumed, but it wasn't in my room. My room wasn't this blindingly white. Nor did it have an annoying beeping that constantly chimed away or that burning sterile smell.

I wiggled slightly, trying to lift me head up, but found myself trapped under something. I looked down to see an arm covering the thin sheet that was being used as a blanket.

I followed the arm all the way up to a familiar sight.

"Kaa-San?" I called out weekly. My throat was parched, so it came out as more of a hiss. "Kaa-San?"

Her eyes instantly shot open once I said her name a second time, a series of emotions running across her face all at the same time. "Miku? Oh Miku, you're awake!"

Her eyes were bloodshot, as though she hasn't slept in several days. She had dark bags under her eyes and her skin was several shades paler than usual. Her hair, which was usually tied up, had become free of its bonds and had gone wild, spiking out all over the place. "You have no idea how much you worried me Miku..." She hugged me tightly, bringing my body closer to hers. I could feel a wetness on my shoulder as she did so.

"What happened, kaa-San? I don't..." I couldn't remember the word for remember, so I just trailed off. "It hurt Kaa-San..."

"Don't worry, Miku-chan. Nothing will hurt you anymore. Nothing..." She hugged me tighter before letting me go and getting back on her chair. "You were hurt Miku. By a really scary demon. But it's okay now. The ninjas took care of it."

Demon? Like the bijuu? What was going on? What the hell happened? "Kaa-San? I don't get it..."

She gripped me in another hug before speaking again. "It's okay Miku. You'll get it when you're older... Just get better for now. The ¥•+*¥•+ ('hospital maybe?' I thought) will take care of you."

She got up from her stool beside my bead and kissed my forehead. "I have to go now, but I will be back, okay Miku-chan? Be a good girl and sleep, okay?"

She gave me one more hug before leaving me alone in the white room.

I gave a quick sigh before getting comfortable in this bed, but I found that to be impossible. No matter which side I tried to turn, it was always to lumpy or to warm or too cold or something. I settled on just trying to think about what happened while trying to get comfortable.

Really, what had happened? I was waddling back inside and then I had collapsed because it felt like I was being Burt alive while simultaneously having the life sucked out of me... And kaa-San said it was a demon that did it... But that makes no sense. The only demon in konoha was the kyuubi, and that apparently attacked the walls of the village and was nowhere near me at the time, so what the fuck happened?

Out of the corner of my eye, just as was about to try and stick my head under the extremely thin pillow this hospital had supplied me with, I noticed a white streak on the wall that looked... Off.

I shifted my head to face the wall, expecting it to be some trick of the eye, but what I saw made me freeze.

event completed! Survived kyuubi attack!  
new unlockable!  
achievement(s) unlocked!:  
- Sensitive issues (15 gs): survive kyuubi attack event!  
- 1 year wheel (30 gs): description locked  
New items!  
-storage scroll (item unknown)

Continue?  
yes  
no

What. The. Fuck?

I decided that that was a good sign as any that my brain should just power down and pass out.

So I did.

* * *

Well, done. I wrote this on my ipod in my spare time, so sorry if there are any obvious mistakes. Auto-correct tends to make some words other words when i'm not paying attention.

If you can't tell by the name, i tend to stick around the fate/stay night archives. Currently thinking about doing a crossover with the Achievement hunter crew and said world of fate/stay night. probably going to stay a one-shot though. I just cant resist the thought of Gavin with a reality marble... Hehehe... basic idea is that the AH crew get summoned as servants because fulcrum burnie was the avenger of the 3rd grail war and the grail was turned into a conceptual version of the tower of pimps. Seriously, Gavin as Caster with a reality marble and Michael as MOGAR as Berserker, what can go wrong with that?

Also thinking of doing a story with hinata having multiple personalities after the Kumo thing. not sure if i should do it though... If you believe i should go through with it, then let me know, cause right now im pretty borderline on whether or not i should...

Anyway thanks for reading. If you didnt like it, then i dont care.


	2. Chapter 2

Well, here's chapter 2 of my worst idea ever. Still put the minimal amount of effort into it.

A note: i noticed that -san tends to turn into -San and that tends to disappear when i'm using it. Oh well.

Well, hope you enjoy it.

* * *

event completed! Survived kyuubi attack!  
new unlockable!  
achievement(s) unlocked!:  
- Sensitive issues (15 gs): survive kyuubi attack event!  
- 1 year wheel (30 gs): description locked  
New items!  
-storage scroll (item unknown)

Continue?  
yes  
no

The white words danced silently in the air, a particle effect trailing behind the letters as they moved. I was back in my own room, resting on the bed as I was forced to stay here for my own health.

I had an extremely brief stint in the hospital. Apparently, the Uchiha compound has its own medical facilities, so I was brought there to be checked up on after... Whatever happened.

I had been I there for around a week, sleeping in that bed. By the time I woke up, they were thinking about putting me in a long term ward somewhere.

Getting out was a quick process. I was about healed after my week in bed, so my mother and I managed to get back to our little corner of the compound pretty quickly.

Of course, as soon as we got back, my mother locked me in my room and told me to get some rest because she was worried about my well-being. She also refused to answer any of my questions when I asked them. I attributed it to her simply just being worried about me, but it wasn't just that. No, there was something else on her mind.

Right now though, there was something occupying my mind, and that was the floating words on the wall qbve my head.

I analyzed the first line for quite a while. The kyuubi attack had occurred either on the night of when my blood and body had decided to marry the floor or sometime between that and my waking up in the hospital. Based on what my mother said while I was confined to that white prison as well as the so called achievements, the first was the most probable one.

I had survived the kyuubi attack, it said. That meant it had affected me somehow. Apparently, that meant bleeding out on a floor in immense pain. But then, how had it affected me when I hadn't even seen the damn thing? Was its chakra really that potent? Or was it something else?

I would get my answers on that soon enough, so I turned to the second achievement. This one was locked, for some reason. One year wheel... What could it mean? Really, achievements only made sense when one understood the concept behind them, although the other achievement still doesn't make sense.

Still, why would something like that be locked? Is some upper dimensional being trolling me super hard right now?

Really, none of this makes sense anyway, so I just moved on to the next piece of information I had. I had a new unlockable.

I really don't remember much before I woke up here, but I do remember black and white... Lots of it. And floating words similar to these.

The unlockable was something I barely recall from the edge of my memory. I remember seeing something like that while I was in that strange white room and doing something with unlockables, but I don't remember exactly what. I don't even know how to access it.

It also appeared that I had gained a storage scroll as an item. I had yet to see said scroll, and seeing as I had no idea what was inside of it, I decided to ignore said non-existent scroll for now.

Other than the continue button, I had come to three conclusions. 1. I was in some sort of fucked up game beyond all imagining. 2. This game likes to give me as little information as possible. 3. I had 7 to 8 years before Itachi would murder everyone in the Uchiha Clan, including me.

My plan for living had now taken a slight detour. I had hoped that I would have more time than that, but now that I have a time frame, a short one at that, I had to make slight adjustments.

It was so easy to think about it, but doing it... Doing it was a whole other matter. I might as well just kill myself than to through with it, but I wanted to live. It was either my morals and ethics or my will to live, and I wasn't sure if I could harden my heart enough to do it...

The words continued on their little parade, dancing around in circles above me. I suppose it would be best to continue on, wouldn't it?

"Yes." I said.

Nothing happened.

"Yes."

Still nothing.

"Yes yes yes yes yes!"

Still nothing. Zilch. Nada.

What the hell? In that place, all I had to do was say yes and it would just work, but now it wasn't working!

Calming myself down, I thought about what could have changed between then and now. This led me nowhere, as everything had changed. My body, my parents, hell, even my-

Oh.

I'm stupid.

"Yes." I spoke in English. I mean, I had probably said yes a million times in Japanese while I was awake and nothing happened. Ergo, speaking in English was probably what would work.

After i made that connection, a poof of smoke materialized above my head. I suppose I should have seen the scroll landing right on my nose coming from a mile away.

"Ouch!" I yelped out as I rubbed my nose slightly.

I picked op the I identified tubular object and examined it closely. It looked like a sealing scroll, which made sense because that's what the words had said I had gotten earlier.

I was not going to try and open it up though. Not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't. Moving around chakra inside my body had never been a problem, but trying to force it out always hurt. Plus, I wasn't to sure if one just pumped chakra in and it would work or if you had to do something specific.

I put it under my bed and glanced back towards the ceiling, noticing that a new set of words had formed above.

to access unlockables, please access the Menu and select Unlockables to activate it.  
-hint: to access the Menu, please say Menu.

Access the menu? Well, there really wasn't anything else I could do at he moment, and I doubted a menu could kill me, so I went ahead with trying to open it.

"Menu?"

As soon as those words left my tiny mouth, the color drained from the room. Everything had taken on shades of gray except me, for some reason. Then, even that drained away, leaving the room looking like a sketch someone had done on a blank sheet of paper.

I was a bit disoriented, as my mind was telling me that I should be falling through my bed, which now consisted of lines floating in the air, but I wasn't.

In this black on white world, a mass of solid black formed directly in front of me, cutting through the lines which composed the bed below me.

Letters suddenly burst into existence on the board of solid black, creating words.

Character  
Items  
Map  
Unlockables  
Achievements  
options  
Exit

I really should stop being surprised by things like this. Really, I should. But no, I still get startled by a random slab of black with text suddenly appearing in my room, which, by the way, had turned into a sketch.

I shook my head and looked at the first option, which seemed to be the best place to start.

"Character."

Biography  
Abilities  
Status  
Exit

'So, these selections were details about me?'

I decided to test out my little hypothesis by opening the biography tab.

Miku Uchiha:  
Born December 27nth  
Female  
Blood type: AB  
History: born on December 27nth a year before the kyuubi attack on konoha to Shinako(f) and Ryusei(m) of the Uchiha clan. Has so far lived for 10 months and has survived the kyuubi attack. No other notable events have occurred or characters met.  
exit?

'Well that was short,' I thought as I went over the information. There was nothing new here that I didn't already know, other than my blood type. Putting the new information in some corner of my mind for future reference, I went back to the character page.

Really, I knew that going through the other two would be useless right now, so I just ignored them in favor of going back and checking the new unlockable I managed to somehow received. Based on what I had seen so far, any information given is usually stuff I had already known, so I doubted I would find anything spectacular.

I went back to the starting menu and went to unlockables.

Custom BGM (have custom audio files loaded): enabled  
Legendary mode: Disabled (locked)  
guide book (get through first major event): disabled  
? (Locked)  
? (Locked)

A guide book? What the...? Is this thing seriously trying to give me help?

I was seriously considering just screwing the guide book all together and just continuing on with this demented game as if nothing ever happened, just because I knew that anything helpful from the system might just backfire, but I wasn't about to overlook a gift from the horses mouth.

I enabled it and decided if it backfired on me somehow, I would invent a time travel jutsu so I could punch myself in the face.

I went back to the main menu and decided to just quit. The map looked like an appealing option, but I knew better than to think that it would show me anything I didn't already know. It would probably just show my house and only the rooms I've been in too.

I didn't bother with the achievements this time because so far I only had two, and if it worked like unlockables, I wouldn't even know what achievements I would unlock until I did the thing that unlocked them. Plus, achievements were useless in the long run.

The only item I had was the dumb scroll which I can't even use and I had fiddled with the options before in that place of nothing, so quitting was the best option, in my opinion.

"Exit."

An exact reverse of what had happened to my room occurred. The black wall dissolved towards the ceiling and everything slowly gained shades of gray before finally regaining all the color that had been there before.

"That's trippy..." I whispered to myself.

As i was talking to myself, i heard a familiar poof above my head. I managed to look up just in time to catch a small pocket book before it landed on my head.

"So this is the fucking supposed guide book?" I was extremely skeptical at the tiny book in my left hand. With the help I had received so far, a guide book seemed like a gift from god.

I opened the book to find a a series of rather random hints in no particular order.

To access the menu, say menu!  
Remember to use the menu to see your inventory!  
Achievements can sometimes unlock unlockables!  
Your map updates as you encounter new areas!  
Items cannot be stored in extra space. Only this book and other special items can be stored there!  
To store these items, simply toss them into the air. To get them back, simply raise a hand in the air and think about it appearing in your hand!  
The menu room will stop time! However, do not abuse it as any ideas and changes one has done will reverse as soon as one has exited the menu!  
The character log will only update with information you know yourself!  
Certain Achievements can only be known about once the player has figured them out, even if you have completed the requirements for it!  
Even if you unlock an unlockable, certain requirements might have to be met to receive what one has unlocked!  
You only have one life, so use it wisely, as if you die, all data relating to the player is erased, including the player!

I idly flipped through the rest of the pages and found them all blank. There was nothing else on any of the other pages, but I wasn't worried about that. It was the last line on the first page of rather mundane but useful hints that caught my attention.

You only have one life, so use it wisely, as if you die, all data relating to the player is erased, including the player!

Erased... As in, from existence? I remember the feeling I felt before I wound up here... It was the most horrifying thing I had ever experienced. Slowly disappearing... Physically, mentally, losing all sense of self... Losing sanity, losing emotions, forgetting all... Getting rid of everything that made me me. I never wanted to go through that again. Ever. It was an experience beyond death and pain. It was being reduced to nothing, and I never wanted to be nothing. Not again.

Removing myself from that mindset, I concentrated on the line in the book. The feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach had blown into a full grown ulcer at those words. I had suspected that I only had one life. In that title screen, I distinctly recalled that there had been no continue button as an option. Once I had found out that, yes, that weird place I had been in had been relevant, I had scoured my mind for any details on what I had done there. I couldn't recall much, but I remembered that the lack of a continue option had put me off at the time.

When I had learned that this world I lived in operated similar to a video game, I had hoped it would be similar in life and death mechanics as well. I had no intention of dying any time soon, but the ability to load a save or restart at a checkpoint would have been a great backup if I had. At least then I would have felt safer.

Fucking shit... Now I guess I can't take any risks that might end with me dying. Not that I was planning on taking any any time soon.

I read the other tidbits one more time. They seemed pretty useful, although they basically confirmed what I had already hypothesized. Seeing as the rest of the pages were blank, I guessed that they would fill up with information as I needed said information or I found something that would be included in there.

Feeling particularly drained after learning of an apparent alternate dimension I can call up on will and being able to poof in a random book at random, I decided the best course of action would be to toss the book back into whatever hammers pace it came from and go to sleep.

Two month had gone by. Nothing had really changed.

My mother had decided a while ago that it was fine for me to do what I wanted to do. She had he own duties as a Chunin to do and she rarely had time to stick around and care look after me. Not that she didn't worry, no, she just knew I could take care of myself if necessary.

She had sat me down a few weeks ago to talk to me about why I had collapsed so suddenly in the hall because I had been asking so many questions about it. I could read that she had been incredibly distraught after I had come back from the clan hospital, so I had decided not to pester her about it as it was still an issue for her, but after a few weeks I decided to open my mouth about it.

She sat me down and decided it was time to tell me about what had happened the night of October 10nth.

According to her, a large demon had come to squish the village under its paw, and that the Yondaime of Konoha had killed it. However, the Kyuubi had managed to breach the walls of the village and several brave ninja had to hold it back until the Yondaime got there.

While it was in the village, its chakra managed to spread out over parts close to where it had breached into the village. Because of the malevolent intent behind the chakra, those who managed to get some of the chakra into their body were irritated from the inside out. For me, it was a bit different.

I had something called acute chakra sensitivity, although it took me forever to puzzle out the meanings of the words she said. It simply meant that any sensation I would get from chakra inside my own body would be magnified by quite a bit, which explained the bouts of pain when I tried to force it out. I had asked her about it and she said it was because my tenketsu hadn't fully developed, and it usually took around one to two years for one to try and use jutsu without hurting one's self. Go figure.

With that mystery solved, I stopped bugging her. She still had that look on her face occasionally, which raised some concern from me.

My birthday was tomorrow, so I dropped any worries to have a day of fun with her.

Birthdays weren't really that much of a formal affair in the ninja world apparently. Unless you were the son of daughter of a clan head, then birthdays were usually just small gatherings of family and friends with maybe one present.

The day started off normally, with me getting up by myself just getting ready for the day. Mom wasn't usually around in he morning, as she had an early morning shift at her work place. She still wouldn't tell me what she did, but apparently it was important.

I hanged out of my clothes and headed down the hall to the kitchen. It was pristinely clean, because mom was a neat freak, by I didn't mind. I went up to the fridge, which towered over me due to my short stature, and reached for the handle high above.

The fridge was pretty empty. There were a few snacks here and there along with some juice and milk, but over all half the fridge had nothing in it.

I reached up to grab said milk, which mother had graciously put near the bottom of the fridge. I took it and placed it on the table before grabbing some cereal and putting a little bit into a bowl. I then added some milk and began to eat.

Once I was finished with that, I put all the stuff away and headed out to the backyard towards my usual spot to just relax and look up towards the sky.

I could see why Shikamaru liked looking up at the sky so much. Being here, one really doesn't feel the pressing need to get everything done at an accelerated rate or just any pressure at all. Just you, the sky, and the shadows of trees occasionally drifting across your face, and the sound of rustling leaves in the wind...

I just closed my eyes, forgot all my worries, and listened to the end and leaves...

Some time later, I hear the sound of the squeaky door to the yard opening, signifying my mother's return. I looked up towards the sky and gauged that it was only around nine-ish. She usually didn't return until two, or even not until very late at night depending on what she was doing.

Getting up from my cradle of roots and leaves, I joined my mother in the kitchen and hugged her.

"Kaa-San! Your home early today!" I sounded so exited in my little high pitched child voice.

"Mmmhm! Kaa-San was allowed to come home early today because she asked the Hokage if she could spend the day with Miku-chan!" She picked me up and sat down, putting me in her lap. "So then Miku-chan, where do you want to go today? Today, we can go anywhere you like, anywhere. Just say where!"

It raised my eyebrows in surprise. I had yet to leave the complex, so by her saying that we could go anywhere, I now had an excuse to leave the village.

"I wanna go get something to eat!" I was feeling peckish after my nap, and that seemed as good an excuse as any. "I wanna go outside, in the village! I wanna see, I wanna see!"

"Well, you're the boss today, so I suppose going into the village is okay." She playfully smiled. "So, I'm going to walk around and you'll pick which restaurant we go to, alright?"

"Yup! I got it!"

She set me down and brushed herself off. "Now, go get dressed in something a little more & "& (better? Suited? Comfortable?) for walking around in, okay Miku-chan?"

I nodded enthusiastically before taking off for my room. I changed out of my usual attire of baggy pants and a long sleeve black shirt to a short sleeved purple shirt with the Uchiha symbol on the side and blue shorts.

I met up with mom near the front door, and we headed out, with me riding on her shoulders.

If I had learned one thing to absolutely hate that I had taken granted of before, it was my height. In my past life, I wasn't anyone too tall, but I was about a few centimeters taller than most, at around five foot eleven. I hadn't realized being that tall you got to see quite a few things that one never really saw at my current diminutive height, and so I despised being so short.

So, being all the way up here above my mother, I really appreciated the view.

I marveled at the view. There really was a lot to see, and not much time to see it. We passed through the residential zone, which I noted got more and more elaborate in housing designs as we moved further, and eventually hit the main gate outside the compound.

Well, it's really the main gate outside the compound, but really the gate separating the residential district from the street which separated the Uchiha shopping district and the police department.

She headed down the road and she walked at an extremely leisurely pace. Occasionally, she would stop to talk to someone or they would stop her and she would introduce me. I didn't expect to meet anyone I knew, but fate had a way of surprising me.

"Ah, Inoichi-San, how are you doing today?" My mother bowed slightly, forcing me to grab onto her head to make sure I didn't fall off. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to come in to work today. It's my daughter's birthday today and my husband..." She trailed off, eyes down cast.

He softly chuckled, "ah, no, it's alright. I understand your situation and Ibiki does as well." He glanced up at me, staring directly into my eyes with his own pupil-less eyes.

"So this is the daughter you've been telling me all about? She looks just as smart as you say." He reached up to pat my head and rifled my hair a bit.

Inoichi? As in, Inochi Yamanaka? As in, Ino's dad?

He certainly looked like him. Blonde hair, rugged face, square jaw. Yup. He seemed to fit the bill.

My head started to come up with a whole bunch of theories as to why the hell my mother and Inoichi of all people would know each other.

'So, my mother works with Inochi... Inoichi worked in Torture and Interrogation. I think.' I tried to go through the sudden pile of information that was suddenly dumped on my head to try and clarify a bit more. 'She mentioned Ibiki. Only Ibiki I know is Morino Ibiki, and I'm pretty sure that he also worked in torture and interrogation...'

Once those connections had been made, I came to my final conclusion.

'Holy shit, my mom works in T&I.'

Immediately after that, another thought pooped into my head.

'Holy shit, my mom's a badass!'

"So, what are you doing out of work?" She questioned. "People in our line of work rarely get breaks, and two of us at the same time is ) )") rare."

He patted me on the head one more time before responding. "I'm getting groceries because I got out pretty early. Ibiki decided that he could handle the work load for today, so the rest of us decided to take a day off as well after you left." He scratched the back of his head. "Today has been a good day. We all got a day off, we get to spend the day with our kids, and the hyuga recently got an heir too."

An heir? Soon after the kyuubi attack? Did that mean...?

"I believe her name was Hinata, if I'm not mistaken. I don't suppose your kid would mind sharing a birthday with her, would she?"

Mom took a brief bemused glance up at my face. "Well Miku-chan? Do you mind sharing your birthday with Hinata-hime?"

I nodded my head once to signify my answer of yes. Inochi burst out laughing.

"So humble for a kid..." He breathed out to calm himself down. "Nothing like my Ino..."

He looked around before turning his back towards us. "Well, see you tomorrow, Shinako-San." He turned back to face us. "And you to, Miku-chan. Maybe one day I'll introduce you to Ino. I'm sure you'd be friends."

I doubted it, but I decided to nod anyway.

"Bye Inoichi-San. Remember to tell my lazy cousin to get moving!" She looked at me again. "Say goodbye to Inoichi-San, Miku."

I took in a deep breathe and let loose a bye before my mother took off in a different direction.

We walked around for a little while, stopping here and there, admiring the sites.

Eventually, we stopped in front of a restaurant and I decided that would be a good place to eat. It looked packed with people and it smelled heavenly inside, so I thought it must be a good place to eat.

"Oh, good choice! That is your Dad's favorite restaurant to go to in his off time. He used to bring me here all the time..." She suddenly stopped talking before picking up her sentence again. "Anyway, it sells the most ( (& & (delicious? Appetizing? Gratifying?) Dumplings ever! Plus lots of other ninjas come here to eat as well!"

She set me down and we headed in, with me instinctively moving closer to my mother as we moved into the crowded environment.

The place was huge on the inside, with plenty of wooden booths to sit down in. Most of them looked positively packed with people, but there were a few here and there that were empty, although most of those empty ones had dirty dishes on them, signifying that those who sat there had recently just left.

It didn't take too long for someone to come along and offer us a place to sit, much to my surprise. Maybe it was because they recognized my mother as a ninja, and ninjas got priority over civilians or something?

Anyway, we sat down in a corner booth and sat down, waiting for our order to be taken.

"So, Miku-chan, while we're waiting, do you want to play a game? Maybe some Go?"

My mother had an extreme obsession with the game. Whenever we had some time, she would ask if I wanted to play it, with her being black and me being white. I really enjoyed the time I spent playing against her, although she always beat me no matter how long I thought my plays out. I was pretty sure that I was just a really bad Go player and she was an exceptionally good one, which was why I lost all the time.

She took a scroll from a pocket in the jacket she was wearing and set it on the table. She rolled it out, revealing it to be a sealing scroll, and then put her hand on top of it. A second later, a Go board with two pots on the side appeared.

"Alright, rules are the same as usual, and you get to go first."

Nodding, I reached into the pot and picked up a white stone and placed it in the northwest zone, which was where I liked to start out.

"So, same as usual." She took a black stone, set in between her middle finger and index finger, and placed it on the board with a solid clack. "Not that I'm complaining, ne, Miku-chan?"

I gave a small harrumph at being belittled by her. "Oh, stop looking so upset, it's just a bit of teasing~~." In response, I picked up a tile and made another move.

"You shouldn't be teasing a one year old on her birthday, kaa-San."

"Oh, but you look so cute when you're being teased!" She took another piece and casually placed it on the board. "Plus my little Miku-chan is so smart and acts so grown up all the time!"

"Stop emba-...embar-... i forget.. me and play!" My cheeks tinged red because I forgot how to pronounce embarrassing in Japanese. I took a piece and placed it in my small corner in the northwest.

"Aww, you're so cute sometimes my little Miku!" She tossed a stone on the table, seemingly not caring where it landed as it hit the middle of the board. "Anyway, your little distraction strategy won't work. I'll still win!"

And so we played for a few more turns before someone came by to take our order, and then continued on for many, many more turns while we waited for our order to arrive.

"Ready to quit?" She asked in a bored tone.

Clack

"Nope."

Clack

"Ready to quit now?"

Clack

"Never!"

Clack.

"Now?"

At that point I knew I had lost. Both my northwestern quadrant, which I had attempted to keep in a chokehold, had been pierced and slowly taken over. The southern board had been turned into a mess of black and white, but it was clear that white had he superior advantage in that scenario. The upper right hand corner was completely dominated by white, with no hope of me ever being able to take any piece there without allowing her into my own territory on the left. It was a no win situation.

".. Yeah you win..."

"Huzzah! The Go queen retains her title for another day!" She had a small fanfare for herself on the spot, even though no one was paying any attention to her victory.

"Yeah, go ahead and gloat... You just won against a one year old, you should feel so proud." I commented off-handily.

She packed up her go board by placing it back into the scroll and gave me a hug. "It's okay Miku-chan... You did your best. I didn't expect you to win. I can even give that lazy cousin of mine a run for his money when it comes to Go, so I don't expect you to win."

"It's fine Kaa-San. I know. It's fun just playing with you." I nodded my head. "And then I'm going to beat you and shout about my victory from the top of Hokage mountain!"

She blew some air out of her nose in order to suppress a laugh. "Oh Miku, you have so much to learn..."

A voice chimed in. "Here are your dumplings and Udon, please have a nice day!"

"Alright, food!" She tossed her hands up in he air. "Now, Miku-chan, I want you to think about why I beat you and I want your explanation after we finish eating, alright?"

I nodded my head and she put my food in front of me. I still didn't have the delicate motor controls I craved, but I had enough to eat on my own, so I was able to eat the udon without any assistance.

I took a bite into the udon and found it to be extremely good. It wasn't too salty and the noodles themselves weren't too undercooked or overcooked. Still, it was missing something.

I should mention that in my previous life, I was addicted to spicy things of all kinds. Nothing was too spicy for me. Hot sauce? It tasted like air was dumped on my food. Tabasco sauce? Dump the entire bottle on my ramen noodles and give it to me. Ghost pepper? I ate that shit for lunch.

In his new body, my craving for the ultimate spicy taste had not waned.

I noticed a small jar of the good stuff on the side and made a grab for it. Then, I dumped around a quarter of the contents into the Udon. I swirled my concoction around a few times and then I took a bite.

"Still needs more..." It tasted how I had wanted it to taste, but it could really use some more. I wasn't going to let myself be tempted though. I was still only one, and I could have all the spicy foods I wanted when I grew up.

With that task done, I started to absent mind-idly eat out of the bowl while thinking about what mom had said to me. This was the first time she had ever asked me something like this. Usually, when we had Go matches at home, she would either leave soon after the match was finished or I would go outside and just sit in my favorite spot, star gazing.

I picked up another noodle, stuffing it in my mouth. Why she beat me... Really, the only thing I could think of was that she was simply better at strategy than me. But there had to be more than that... She was a ninja, and ninjas specialized in seeing beyond what was needed to be seen. She must be asking me what her strategy was then.

I thought back to the match. Most of her moves seemed really random, with her occasionally just tossing a tile on the board and where it landed would be her move. Although, she was a ninja, so those moves could have been made with extreme accuracy to make it seem like she was simply being random in her movements.

At the beginning, I had been winning. I had more of my pieces on the board, with nearly an entire quadrant to myself, while she had seemingly made random maneuvers. Hell, I had been able to take around a quarter of her territory early game and take nearly half the board. But then, with a few well placed stones, she decimated half of my territory and put me on the defensive. From there, she had the game in the palm of her hand.

Assuming the piece placement was not random, then the most logical conclusion was that she had set a trap that I had foolishly fallen for.

So what did that mean? She knew how I would play, so she set a trap for that. That seemed like basic strategy 101. Know your enemy, know thyself and all that crap. Maybe that was what she was going for?

By the time that thought had finish, I had managed to consume all my Udon and my mother was looking at me expectantly.

"Well? Thought about it?" She asked with a mischievous smirk.

"Umm... Well... I think you had a trap laid out for me from the beginning, because you knew how I played." I looked over at the dumplings she had put to the side to eat after we left as to not look at her when I talked. "And... I... Fell for it because you're better at the game than me?"

"Well, I'll give you an A for effort, although you didn't get it right all the way." She gave me a dumpling to eat. "I'll explain how my awesome self won while you eat that, okay Miku-chan?"

I nibbled at the dumpling and slowly nodded my head, silently laughing at my mother's huge ego.

"Alright, how I won takes the form of a few steps. First, you have to realize that you have to have a goal."

"Isn't the goal to win?" I asked.

"Yes, but that's not the kind of goal I'm talking about. By goal, I'm talking about what you want the outcome to be." She picked up a dumpling and stuffed it in her mouth. "In this case, it was having my stones in a formation that would lead to clear victory."

"Yeah, okay, got it..." The dumpling I was nibbling was pretty good. Reminded me of the first time I went to red lobster and tried the bread. "But you said several steps. What about the others?"

"Well, the others are knowing my opponent, in this case my little Miku-chan!" She smiled at me. "And breaking down the task of $ $)&' (taking over?) the board into simple steps."

Really? That was it? Nothing else?

"That's it?" I questioned, mirroring my thoughts at the time.

"No, but those are the main points." She chomped down another dumpling. I was a little worried now because then we wouldn't have any to take home. "You see, when you know the enemy, you know how to work around the enemy. But, in order to do that, you have to have an end goal and steps to reach said goal. Depending on what your steps are, you could be talking a stroll through the park or you're running away from ninja, heavily injured."

It was a relatively simple theory. I suppose she just wanted to teach me something on my birthday, and she chose something she used everyday and imparted that knowledge on me.

"Thank you Kaa-San, I'll use that next time, and then I'll beat you for sure!" I exclaimed.

"Nah ah ah, never!" She giggled at my enthusiasm. "Since we're done, lets go home, alright?"

"Yup!"

We walked out, my mother holding a small bag of dumplings in one hand and my tiny hand in the other, looking down at me with the brightest smile on her face.

Perhaps it was because she was looking at me as we walked out that she accidentally walked into someone, nearly toppling me over in the process.

"Hey, watch where you're- oh, Anko-chan! You're back from your mission!"

Anko, as in the Anko from the chunin exams? That Anko?

I looked up at the woman in front of me. She definitely looked like Anko. Younger, definatley, but definitely Anko. She was wearing something different that what I remember her wearing, though. Instead of the coat and skirt combo I remember her wearing, she wore something akin to a fishnet shirt without sleeves and complimentary fishnet armbands that reached her elbows. Also she had black shorts instead of the orange skirt she would wear in the future. Through the fishnet, I could make out bandages that bound her chest, although she seemed very much still in development.

"Oh, Shinako! It's you... And is that your kid?"

I looked up at my mother questioningly. Most of the people my mother talked to had been around her age (which I assumed to be early twentyish) and older. Anko looked no older than fifteen.

"Yup! Miku, this is Anko, a good friend of mine. Anko, this is Miku, my super cute and super smart daughter!" She picked me up and I was able to see her at eye level. "Her birthday is today!"

I let out a weak "Hi."

"Awww! Look at her! I wish I could just smush her up in a little ball and take her home!"

She reached out for my head, but my mother slapped her hand away from me. "Bad Anko! I'm the only one that can smush her up in a ball and take her home!"

Anko faked looking depressed. "Aww... I want a chibi too!"

"If you want one, then find your own and don't take mine!"

She let out a snort. "Yeah right, no way would I want a brat. Yours is just so well trained already though. I can tell."

My mother set me down and I moved behind her. "Hahaha... Anyway, good to see you! Finally back from that mission of yours, right?"

Anko shook her head. "Yup. Four week long $ $& (no idea on this one) missions are a bit of a pain, but for soon to be jonin Anko, nothing is to hard!"

"Woah, hold back that ego of yours. You still have a year before your even going to be tested for anything like jonin. Plus, your probably just going to wind up as a special jonin with the work you've been doing, with both me and with the village." She rebuked.

"But I'm still going to be a special jonin at fourteen! Your still twenty-one and you haven't gotten anywhere near jonin!"

My mother cocked her her to the side and smiled. "Oh really? Well, guess that the Hokage will be grief stricken at my absence at the jonin promotions on the thirty-first..."

The teenager gawked at her. "Wha-? No way!" Then her eyebrows scrunched up. "So are you going to be a jonin or a special jonin?"

"Special jonin in T&I. I wanted to tell you sooner, but someone was gone on a mission..." She sighed. "Plus, Ryusei would hate if I became a jonin. He's always out on missions and then nobody would be home to take care of Miku. Not that she needed much taking care of when she was little. Probably got that from my father's side of the family..."

Anko suddenly changing into a bit more of a serious and solemn expression. "Speaking of your husband, is Ryusei still-?"

My mother suddenly slapped a hand over her mouth and whispered something in her ear.

Anko's eyes grew wider. "You haven't told her yet?!"

She whispered some more after once more placing a hand on her mouth. It was a futile effort. "It's her birthday today! Why now?"

This time, mom held both her hands to her mouth before whispering, which resulted in Anko shaking her head furiously. This time, instead of shouting it out like last time, she whispered back in her ear.

"Well, I suppose I will leave it to you to deal with the backlash then." She turned around. "I need to go talk to Yamanaka-San."

What wasn't my mother telling me? Apparently it was bad enough that she kept it quiet for a while based on what Anko stated. Maybe it had to do with my new father?

My father, Ryusei, was a really quiet guy. Soft spoken, never really talking more than one or two sentences. He kind of reminded me of Itachi, actually, if Itachi had faced an enemy strong enough to give him scars and had decided to cut his hair like Ken from sun-ken rock while he was poor.

He was always away. He usually came by at least once a week to spend some time with us, but then he had to go back on mission. He might not have been always around, but when he was, he was awesome. He would show off some cool ninja trick and help me out with anything I needed. He was a really cool dad.

He hasn't been back in three months though. The longest I had ever seen him gone was at least a month. I had assumed he had just been on a really long mission, but now that she had said that, I was unsure that that was the case.

He was dead. Most likely. I couldn't think of any reason that she wouldn't tell me that.

I had already lost my family. Losing someone else that I had come to think of as a pseudo-father figure was just...

I held out hope though. I wasn't going to cry. Not any more.

We walked home. I decided to keep quiet for a while, as my mother was deep in thought about something. I was also thinking rather heavily, so I didn't even want to bother her.

I had really wanted to ask her my question. Really, I did. But I was too afraid to. I didn't want to loose anyone. Not again. But I knew that she had planned to tell me today, and whether I brought it up or not, she would eventually have to tell me.

Best I do it on my own terms.

At the gates to the compound, I finally decided to ask her. "Kaa-San, what happened to Tou-San?"

She looked at me with a tired eye and a weary smile. "So, my smart little Miku-chan was able to pick up on that, weren't you?"

She bent down and delivered a warm hug. "I'm sorry for keeping this from you, but... I was worried about you..."

'And me' I could practically hear her thoughts scream out.

"Is... Is tou-San... Gone?" I stuttered out.

"No... No... Not gone... Not yet..." She gave me one more warm hug before taking my hand. "I'll show you. Come with me."

It wasn't a long walk. I shuffled along, wondering where we might be headed. The path was familiar, but I couldn't place where I had seen it before. It was definitely recent, though, so anything from my past was out.

My mother stopped. I looked out from behind her to see the hospital I had been discharged from not so long ago. The hospital that belonged to the Uchiha.

We entered to a large room that was relatively cool, and smelled as though it had been freshly cleaned. I remembered seeing the polished wooden flooring as I walked out the last time.

She nodded towards a person behind a desk, the receptionist, I think, and continued down the twisting corridors of the hospital.

I recalled it being strange that none of the doors had any numbers on them. As I went down the halls with my mother, I noticed that some actually did have numbers, but a very select few were actually numbered. My mother stopped directly in front of one of the numbered doors. This one was marked with a 000-32.

She turned the knob and we entered the room.

It was a classical single bed hospital room. One forlorn window. One white bed. One patient, resting in a bed.

The patient was my father, Ryusei.

I noticed a beeping heart monitor in the corner, which was currently sounding out a very steady rhythm. He was alive.

I swirl of emotions happened inside of me. He was alive, but was he really? Was he just a vegetable? Or was he just in a coma? Or was he just recovering from a severe injury and was currently sleeping?

I was hesitant to find out. I just didn't want to lose anyone again, and seeing him just lying there... I was expecting the worst.

My mother picked me up and pulled out a chair that had been resting in the corner, setting herself down and putting me in her lap, pulling me into a one-armed hug.

"Your tou-San... He was defending the village..." She said. "He... He got back the night that big demon attacked our village. He helped defend it... Us... Everyone..."

"I guess he was lucky. Most of the others who fought with him are...Gone. He was always a fighter though. He lived. But he won't wake up. He should have woken up a month ago, but he is still resting." She reached it a hand for him, and rested it on his arm. "The doctors said that they don't know when he will wake up."

She looked at me, trying to get a gauge on my reaction to learning this. She saw a one year old who had just been told that her father may have just been taken out of her life forever.

Yes, I was sad. Yes, I was upset. But what I really was was that I was relieved. He was alive, and maybe one day, he would wake again. Even if it was for a little while.

"He'll wake up, Kaa-San!" I exclaimed. "He isn't gone like those other people, right? So we can visit him here every day and wait for when he wakes up!"

I follows up. "Then we'll all have fun and go to that dumpling place you took me to and you said you and tou-San went to and then you can take me with tou-San, just like today!"

She looked speechless. Maybe she had been expecting me to cry or something similar, but I proved her wrong. A slow, incredibly happy smile spread across her face.

"I suppose we will have to wait for tou-San to wake up again, won't we?" She giggled. "I was so worried you were going to hate me for not telling you, or that you might end up crying... I suppose I should have expected you would do that, my little Miku..."

She sighed. "I suppose that while I'm at it, I might as well tell you the other thing I've been meaning to tell you..."

Wait, something else? What else does she want to drop on my head?

She saw the expression on my face. "Oh, don't worry Miku-chan, it's actually really good news. If only your father was awake..."

Good news? That somewhat eliminated my fears, but I was still a bit wary of whatever she had been holding back from me.

She looked me in the eye. "Kaa-San?"

"Well, Miku-chan, how do you feel about having a sister?"

My brain attempted to try and understand what she had just said. A sister? What?

I couldn't quite grasp that. I was going to have a sister? When? What? Huh?

My brain still refused to work when we left the hospital. All I remembered was that we left and my mother was giggling like a mad woman.

She took me and put me into bed, even though it was only four-ish. Not that I really had the mental capacity to really think as I was still thinking about all that my mother had told me.

"A sister huh?" I said to myself.

I was going to have a sister?

I was going to have a sister!

A moment of dread settled over me.

I was going to have a sister...

The massacre now looked so much closer than before.

* * *

Still trying to work on the other two. Since the one reviewer decided it was a good idea, i decided to go through with it. I think i have an idea at what i'm going to do with my hinata story, but it seems so far away.

The other one i want to do as a one-shot in the vain of a crossover i once read of TF2 and fate/stay night. IT WAS GENIUS.

Still wish i could go back to my first story. ITS JUST SO HARD TO WRITE.

Cardinal sins:

#5: NEVER EVER MENTION THE WORDS 'PRECIOUS PEOPLE' IN A FANFIC.


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